Thursday, June 8, 2017

Staunton, June 8 – Faced with
repression by regional governments and silence on the part of the central
media, long-haul truckers from the North Caucasus are continuing their strike
on the Moscow ring road in the hopes of attracting more media and popular
attention to their demands that the Plato fee system be done away with.

In response, the Moscow police have
sought to close down the stop on the ring road the truckers have been using,
telling the truckers that the authorities will be repaving it and thus demanding the truckers leave and taking down their
names and addresses and forcing them to accept temporary registration.

It is perhaps symbolic of where the
strike is now that some trucks feature posters showing truckers with signs
saying “No to the Plato System” and with the leading Russian television
stations in the guise of monkeys who hear nothing, say nothing and see nothing.
(For a photograph, see svoboda.org/a/28533765.html).